


the number and hour of your death

by venndaai



Category: Machineries of Empire Series - Yoon Ha Lee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/F, Five Times Format, Other, background jedao/kujen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-09
Updated: 2018-03-09
Packaged: 2019-03-28 22:15:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13913265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/venndaai/pseuds/venndaai
Summary: Five ways the universe warned Khiruev.





	the number and hour of your death

1.

 

The number and hour of your death, the Kel say about their swords. In the hexarchate everyone is obsessed with numbers and hours. A child learns that she has ten fingers and ten toes, and then she learns the notation of the high calendar, and only then can she understand the meaning of the black lines under the skin of her wrist. 

You give a lot up when you join the Kel. The certainty that you’ll live past the next year, for one. That you’ll marry and have children and grandchildren. That you’ll reach the end of the countdown on your wrist. Often, Kel don’t. Service demands sacrifice. 

Khiruev is certain she’ll be one of those lucky unlucky ones. When she graduates Kel Academy, there’s still forty-odd years to go on her personal timer. To a twenty-two year old, forty years is an unbearably long stretch of time to be alone, and she draws comfort from the thought that she probably won’t have to live through it all.

Except she does.

Part of her always knows that she and Moressa aren’t going to last, because Moressa is an incurable romantic and the date on Moressa’s wrist is still ten years away when Khiruev first kisses her palm. After the break up, Khiruev can no longer convince herself that there’s happiness to be found outside of destiny. She sabotages all her relationships because it’s too soon for them anyway. It’s maybe five years after the last day she saw Moressa that she realizes that if she does manage to meet whoever she’s meant to meet, she’ll undoubtedly fuck up that relationship too. After that she tries to stop looking at the numbers, tries to forget that every second they change under her gloves. 

No one could forget entirely, though. The date stays in the back of her head, even as the years roll by and Khiruev continues to fight and continues to do terrible, terrible things and continues to survive. 

Most people talk about reaching their date like it’s when their life is supposed to begin. For Khiruev it feels like the countdown to an execution.

When it passes the one-year mark she looks into asking for a week’s leave. The situation will be bad no matter who it is, but it will be considerably worse if they turn out to be a Kel. Khiruev needs to be somewhere with civilians. Somewhere she can meet a passionate artist, or a dedicated charity worker, or… anyone. Anyone she can hurt just by being herself.

She thinks she’ll manage it, but wars don’t care about one person’s schedule.

When they put in for repairs, halfway through the campaign against the Hafn, Brezan has no way to know why his commanding officer is on edge. Wrist number is one of the few personal details not included in personnel files. He can’t tell her if Kel Cheris’s time is also running out. 

It might not be Cheris. It could be a repair technician, bumping into Khiruev in a hallway. There could be a sudden unexpected development. But Khiruev’s almost certain. The numbers feel hot under the leather of her glove. Most of them have reached zero, but a few are still counting down.

Another Kel. Khiruev can’t let herself think about it. If she does, she knows, she’ll get caught up in it, trying to decide whether she’d want to leave the service to be with this woman. Cheris is considerably younger.  They might not be romantically or sexually compatible. This might be a potential mentor-mentee relationship, or even just a deep friendship. That’s almost worse. She’s practiced at destroying romantic relationships with civilians. She doesn’t think her honor will allow her to do it to a subordinate.

Khiruev sits at her station, trying not to stare at the profile she has pulled up on her display. Cheris likes duelling and mathematics, both things Khiruev can’t make much conversation about. Cheris’s face is young and serious. She looks like she doesn’t smile much. That would be one thing they have in common. Cheris seems nothing like Moressa, and Khiruev doesn’t know what to do with that, either. She’s good looking, this infantry captain. For the first time in years, Khiruev feels conscious of her age, her disfigured face, the white in her hair. 

Communications is relating an unexpected report, and Khiruev is relieved at the distraction, but then she sees Brezan tense up in the corner of her vision. Khiruev looks at her wrist, sees the three, two, one, and looks up to see someone entering the command center. 

Someone who isn’t Ajewen Cheris.

“That joke’s in terrible taste, fledge,” Khiruev says, standing, keeping her voice mild while her insides feel like they’ve just been frozen solid. “Fix the insignia and take off the gloves. Now.”

“Oh, come now,” Jedao says.

  
  


Hours later, constructing her assassination drone, Khiruev thinks about how the general hadn’t paused for a moment. Of course, from his perspective the numbers could refer to anyone who had been on the bridge at that moment. Only Khiruev can know the truth for certain, and that gives a certain cold comfort. But she can’t get over the way he clearly hadn’t even cared. 

He had killed the most important person in Khiruev’s life before she’d even gotten the chance to meet her. 

Khiruev wishes that made her current task easier. 

Cheris’s loss is a stabbing pain, but it’s still easier to think about than what her hands are doing. Khiruev’s fevered thoughts drift. Mother Ekesra and Khiruev’s father had matching countdowns. Mother Allu’s had been with an elderly mentor who had died by the time she decided to contract with Ekesra and Kthero. Khiruev remembers Allu standing there watching as Ekesra killed their husband. Khiruev swore long ago that she would die before doing what Ekesra had done.

She looks at her wrist, at the black 00:00:00:00:00, still and accusatory. She is holding a screwdriver in her other hand. If she applies enough force, would she be able to tear open the vein beneath the numbers?

She has to keep going. She has to kill him. For her swarm, and for the woman whose body he wears. 

Vrae Tala would be easier, but even knowing that no love or respite awaits her, she still feels the call of duty, the desperate need to serve, to do something with her life.

So she endures.

 

* * *

 

 

2.

 

“That joke’s in terrible taste, fledge,” Khiruev says, standing. “Fix the insignia and take off the gloves. Now.”

For a moment Kel Cheris’s face goes blank with shock. She reaches out to steady herself on a nearby railing, and turns it into a languorous lean. “Oh, come now,” she says, with a long drawl,  and smiles. 

Khiruev remains calm. It’s a common enough phrase. She’s had a few false alarms before. Cheris’s moment of unbalance isn’t definitive proof of anything.

“Doctrine,” she says, “escort her out of the command center and lock her up. I’ll deal with her later. If Kel Command intends this as a puzzle, it can wait until things are less hectic here.” A horrible thought occurs to her, that if this is some kind of puzzle, someone is using a private thing of hers against her. It can wait.

The Doctrine officer gets up. Cheris doesn’t even glance in their direction. “General Khiruev,” she says, “I believe you’ve served at your present rank for fifteen years.” 

Khiruev feels the muscles of her jaw go taut. “That’s correct.” 

“I’m Shuos Jedao. I’ve held the rank of general for a good three centuries and change.” 

“That’s not possible,” Khiruev says after a second. She should be doing something more, trying to take back control of the situation, but she can’t think straight. This has to be a game. Someone is tormenting her.

“Oh, don’t tempt me to make a Kel joke, there are so many to choose from. Why don’t you set me a test?”  She- or he- smiles.

Shuos Jedao, Khiruev thinks, can’t stop thinking. It really is like a bad joke. I thought I’d considered the worst that it could possibly be but I would never even have considered that.   

A noise, deafeningly loud, to her left. Khiruev’s body ducks, and her mind only catches up belatedly: Brezan attempting to shoot Jedao; Jedao shooting the gun out of Brezan’s hand.

“Shit,” she hears Brezan say through the ringing in her ears. “I have Captain Cheris’s profile memorized and her aim isn’t remotely that good.” 

“Overkill is something of a personal defect,” Jedao says, in response to that.

Khiruev wonders, for a moment, if General Shuos Fucking Jedao, in his original life- in his original body- had the words,  _ That joke’s in terrible taste, fledge, _ etched over his back in Khiruev’s own spidery brush strokes, and she can’t decide whether she feels more alarmed, amused or embarrassed at that mental image.

“General Jedao,” Khiruev says, “what are your orders, sir?” 

 

* * *

 

  
  


3.

 

“I’m Shuos Jedao. I’ve held the rank of general for a good three centuries and change.” 

Forty years of preparation, ever since she took her first firearms class, and Khiruev still can’t pull out her sidearm and shoot the man. Her hands don’t even twitch. Is it because of the name on her other wrist-  _ Ajewen Cheris _ \- or just good old formation instinct? In the end, the question is academic.

Later, in her quarters, she takes off her gloves to do the tricky mechanical work of constructing her assassin drone, but keeps her eyes on what she’s doing. 

It’s not until significantly later that she begins to wonder- is it possible Jedao was meant to be her ally, and  _ Cheris  _ her enemy? But what could poor Cheris possibly do to her now, besides provide a constant reminder not to get too close to the person wearing her like a suit?

Much later even than that, Cheris sits from her across a table, out of uniform in a sleeveless lavender dress, and extends both arms, turns her wrists so Khiruev can see. 

“Jedao had his own name on his wrist?” Khiruev asks, wondering how anything about Jedao can shock her any more. 

“No,” Cheris corrects languidly, “he had mine. Nothing changed about my skin, when it… happened. The right wrist was the same for both of us, though.”

Khiruev peers at the characters on Cheris’s right wrist. They’re more florid than the ones on her left, and the style looks somewhat archaic to Khiruev’s eye, but she manages to read it. “Who’s Hajoret Kujen?”

“Someone I was mistaken about,” Cheris says, still in the same relaxed tone, but Khiruev can tell that topic is closed.  

There’s silence for a while, before Khiruev decides enough is enough, and begins to remove her gloves. It feels final. It feels like giving up and letting go at the same time. 

“You don’t have to-” Cheris begins, but Khiruev cuts her off with a sharp shake of her head. 

She doesn’t lay her hands down, but keeps them folded in front of her, bare, the thin fabric of the folded gloves warm between her fingers. “I was told about the anchor program after my first year at Kel Academy,” she says, “after they decided I wasn’t going to wash out. I received special training, and a special instructor who tried to drill it into my head that I was probably going to have to kill you someday. But I suppose they never told the Nirai or the Shuos, because I was never selected for the program.”

“They didn’t tell the Nirai,” Cheris agrees, face unreadable. “I would have known, and so would you, before long.”

“All that preparation,” Khiruev continues. “And I couldn't kill you. But I could die for you. And live for you, which surprised me even more.” She rubs her wrists together. Now that she comes to it, she’s strangely reluctant to expose them to Cheris’s gaze. Surely Cheris has already figured out what was written on them. “It makes no sense that I have your names on both my wrists. You were never my enemy. I was my own enemy.”

“It’s not always as straightforward as that,” Cheris says. “Though that’s a very Kel way of looking at it.” She sounds wry.

“Well, I’m not Kel any more,” Khiruev says, and the words don’t shake her like she thought they might, but she still feels hollow and fragile, saying them. “Tell me about your Shuos way of looking.”

“Perhaps later,” Cheris says. She reaches across the table, and takes Khiruev’s hand in hers. Bare skin on bare skin. A gesture of comradery that Khiruev’s never had before in forty years of soldiering. 

“I might not have your name on my skin,” Cheris says, “but I’ll always be on your side.”

  
  


\----

  
4.  
  
  
  


“General,” Brezan says. “Could I have a moment of your time in private?”

They’ve spoken several times in private since he was assigned to her, though only ever professionally, about personnel issues, and, when he first came aboard, about himself, though she’d cut that one short after seeing his extreme discomfort. He’s never interrupted her on the bridge, though.

There’s nothing happening right now, just keeping an eye out for enemy activity, and all Khiruev is doing is going over the scan reports again and again, so she says, “In my briefing room. Commander Janaia, you have command.”

Inside the black-and-gold briefing room, Brezan says, tersely, “We’ve been ordered to pick up an asset at the next transfer point. An infantry captain. Command isn’t saying why, only that she’s vitally important.” He doesn’t wait for Khiruev to ask why this information had to be delivered in private, but hands her his tablet. It’s displaying a Kel profile: infantry captain Kel Cheris. Khiruev’s eyes automatically scan over the words first, before the profile picture reaches her brain. Once it does, all her thoughts grind to a halt. 

Brezan remains silent and motionless for the thirty seconds it takes her to gather her wits together. “Thank you,” she says. She could imagine the sharp nod he gave her in response, but she can’t tear her eyes away from the picture. And she can’t stop one of her hands from rising, can’t stop herself from tracing the raised scar tissue covering the left side of her face. She can feel the touch of cloth on skin, but it all seems quite distant. 

Brezan finally says, “Sir, may I ask-” He stops.

“Speak freely, Colonel,” she says, faintly. 

“I had wondered why you never had them removed, sir. I know some people keep small scars for identification, but…”

“I didn’t think we would ever-” Khiruev swallows. She likes and trusts Brezan as much as she does any of her officers, but what he’s doing for her now, listening to her secret fears, might well jeopardize their working relationship. But not telling anyone might jeopardize Khiruev’s sanity. “It was fifteen years ago,” she whispers. “She was a child, Colonel. Why didn’t her parents-”

She pulls herself together. Stands up. Wrenches her eyes away from that young face with the exact pattern of scars that she sees in the mirror every morning. 

 

 

The Vrae Tala ceremony involves a symbolic drawing of blood. Khiruev retreats to her quarters, lays out the things she needs, and goes through with it; then she cleans up and waits. She isn’t waiting long before the door chimes. “Come in,” she says, unnaturally calm.

Her commanding officer enters, looking oddly disheveled. They stride across the room, take Khiruev’s ungloved hand and turn it over, exposing the palm and wrist and the red lines painstakingly etched into dark skin. “The fuck?” they say.

The physical calm settled over Khiruev like a blanket almost resembles being drugged in the way it contrasts with the rising swoop of her heart. She waits a long moment, then gently turns their joined hands over again, so she can slip her fingers beneath the hem of Cheris’s glove and pull downwards until the streak of scarlet is visible. It’s a blatantly insubordinate, inappropriate move, no matter how gently carried out, but Khiruev has, in a way, been set free. 

Cheris is breathing harshly. She snatches her hand away, pulls the hem back up. The Kel unglove only for suicide missions and lovers, the saying goes. Khiruev, rubbing one bare wrist against the other, thinks it’s probably wrong to hope that Cheris will be the second and not the first. 

Then she remembers why they’re here together in this room, and castigates herself for even momentarily forgetting. Horribly, Khiruev feels her eyes fill with tears. “Cheris,” she says, softly. “I’m so sorry.”

“Why?” Cheris asks in a croaking whisper, still sounding like a dead man. 

Where to even begin? Sorry about her face- and the other myriad of scars inflicted over a lifetime. Sorry about Vrae Tala- though not sorry enough to regret doing it. Sorry, so sorry, about the news Khiruev had just received, about one more atrocity on top of all the rest. 

At least Khiruev is unlikely to physically harm her any further. 

“What did you tell them in the Academy?” she asks, a question in response to a question. Relationships between Kel are banned for good reason; stupid to give soldiers twice the risk of injury. 

“That I fell into a cooking fire as a child,” Cheris replied. “Generally everyone was willing to believe my parents were backwards and irresponsible.”

Khiruev needs to tell her about the Vidona’s threat. Instead she lets the tears roll down her face, and tries to pretend for the smallest moment that they are both other people.

 

* * *

 

5.

 

Khiruev is eleven when color leaves her world. 

Usually it happens at puberty, that’s what she’s told at school, and is a process so gradual you don’t even really notice. Khiruev doesn’t notice either at first, despite it happening to her all at once. For the first hour or two, she has other things on her mind. 

She’s sad and baffled when Moressa doesn’t bring the colors back. Listening to her singing was like seeing color, such an exhilarating feeling she was sure she would open her eyes in the darkened music hall and see reflections of a million hues. But no. 

Later on, she’s glad of it. Glad she only has the memories of the normal spectrum of colors, and doesn’t know the color of corpselight (“dead purple,” according to Janaia), or the exact green of fungal destruction, or the flat color left against black after a ship explodes in vacuum. There’s only silvers and blacks in Khiruev’s universe, like a Nirai station, or a world made of corpsepaper. 

When she does finally start to get the colors back, it seems like a particularly funny consolation prize that it happens after she starts dying. 

Jedao notices, when she comes into his quarters and winces at the horrible clash of colors she is only now able to appreciate. He raises an eyebrow at her, and she wonders if he’s going to push her on it. She wants him to, she thinks, though it’s a terrible idea. But he doesn’t. 

When Vrae Tala gets the better of her and she’s confined to an infirmary bed, she pulls up a picture on the tablet she’s allowed to keep, a picture of the Miifau Music Hall, on Weraio Five. The picture has all the color she could want- blue sky, turquoise river, dark green trees, yellow brick. It’s a bit of a shame she’ll never see it in person, but the picture is good enough. It’s a useful focal point for when she gets lost in white snow and echoes, at least until the shadows get too much and she can’t concentrate on anything.

_ What color is the watch? _ the birdform servitor asks her, and she focuses, and sees: gold. A warm, bright color. The stripes on Kel uniforms. The brushed metal surface of the servitor itself. A sunrise on Weraio Five. Bumblebees, softly caught between her fingers. 

It’s a good gift for Cheris, in return for everything Cheris has given her. She can’t thank her for the colors in words, not when she’s old and exhausted and there’s wars to fight and nothing in all of this at all resembles a romance. She remembers Jedao- Cheris-’s casual comments on color, since the first day they met. She can’t ask, either, if that was yet another misdirection.

When Cheris takes the watch with ungloved hands that tremble, Khiruev thinks she doesn’t need to ask anything.


End file.
